Lack of timely measures to tackle the changing climate has led to the disappearance of entire roads, as Canada’s ice melts away in the face of global warming. “There’s no ice road this year, just a river where our supply trucks should be.” These were the words from a Northern Ontario First Nation, captured by Hilary Beaumont in The Guardian during the winter of 2024. The story revealed the stark reality of families in Eabametoong First Nation who now face impossible choices: skip food or fly in fuel. On top of this, wildfires consume forests faster than they can regrow, threatening to strand families in place. What does resilience mean when your lifeline home melts beneath your feet?

Infrastructure alone cannot solve this. Roads are not merely concrete. A road is family, a connection to homes, a symbol of safety and belonging. Its loss is not just logistical; it is existential. Despite extraordinary resilience, many First Nations remain under-resourced and overexposed on the climate frontline. Water itself has become both a barrier and a lifeline here; its absence, its excess, and its shifting form now shape survival and sovereignty.

Thousands of kilometers away in Satkhira, Bangladesh, I had met through WaterAid families who also live on water’s edge, not with melting ice but with rising seas and salinity intrusion. Here, ethnic-minority communities who once walked miles through salty contaminated water to fetch drinking water are beginning to write a different story. With new rainwater systems, a mother told us, “Before, we waited days for water. Now our children can focus on education rather than spending time to fetch water and learn without hesitation.” Their lack of safe drinking water once deepened vulnerability, but it is now a foundation of empowerment, restoring dignity and opening futures.

Resilience, I have learned, is not only about withstanding storms but about the courage to keep building a future when every season threatens to take it away. In Canada, it is the quiet determination of community leaders who rebuild after fire and melting ice, even with uncertainties of when, or if, displaced families can return home. In Bangladesh, it is the ingenuity of communities who harvest the rain, elevate their homes, and teach their children that survival is more than endurance. These are all acts of adaptation with hope.

However, resilience cannot be romanticized as endurance alone. No community should have to endure neglect just to prove its strength. True resilience is built when systems of governance, finance, and solidarity step up, when families no longer have to choose between hunger and heat, or between contaminated water and their children’s health. It is about shifting from survival to sovereignty, ensuring that those on the frontlines are supported to lead their own solutions.

At the federal level, the Government of Canada has made some concrete pledges on adaptation finance. Internationally, Canada committed CAD $5.3 billion over the five years starting in 2021, with at least 40 per cent of that earmarked for adaptation. Domestically, investments such as the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund and the Climate Change Adaptation Program show intent to strengthen resilience. Yet the scale remains modest compared with the risks. The OECD’s 2025 review noted that while Canada’s adaptation funding is “key,” it is “limited relative to exposure,” warning that the country’s infrastructure, health, and food systems are still highly vulnerable to climate extremes. Promises alone will not protect communities; adaptation finance must flow to where the impacts hit hardest, guided by local priorities and accountable governance.

As another Canadian winter approaches, forecasters predict it will be milder than average, with unpredictable swings of freeze and thaw. Some might take comfort in that, assuming the worst has passed. Yet such comfort is misplaced. A mild winter does not mean safety; it means volatility, rain on snow, delayed ice formation, and sudden cold snaps, each of which poses fresh risks for northern communities, infrastructure, and ecosystems. When we ignore these warning signs, we mistake temporary relief for resilience.

The reality is clear: ignoring actions regarding climate change will not alter the situation. Pretending the crisis is distant or manageable only deepens our vulnerability. Each year we delay, the costs grow in lost homes, livelihoods, and lives. The question is no longer whether climate change will reshape Canada, but how we will respond when it does. Will we wait until the roads melt, or will we reimagine how we build, govern, and care for one another before it is too late?

As we look toward COP30 in Belém, the test of global climate leadership will be whether nations move beyond promises to deliver governance and financing frameworks that put the sovereignty of frontline communities first. Climate justice must not be deferred to technical negotiations; it must be embedded as the moral compass of international agreements.

This is climate justice: centering local knowledge, amplifying voices from all parts of the world, and reshaping climate finance so that the communities who live closest to the edge can adapt with dignity. Climate justice will not be measured by kilometres of pipes but by whether the most vulnerable gain sovereignty over their future.

Adnan Qader - Manager, Water Governance and Resilience, WaterAid Canada